I have so few mental gears left to slip. You wouldn’t think there would be any left still touching each other. But here we are. And there it goes.

Truth crouched like a gargoyle or a particularly malevolent pigeon or perhaps just an over-ambitious rat, on the metal gantry over the Prototype Lab. The Shattervoid girl was laughing now, an awful sound in his head. He wondered just what those curse tablets were doing to her. If it could be worse than five years of abuse, isolation, fear. Pain. Twelve years old.

When he was twelve…

Well, when he was twelve he was trying to haul scrap out of the canal, running errands, hiding in trash from gangsters and pimps and the randomly violent or rapey. To say nothing of learning the high art of shoplifting from a slum convenience store. Definitely not a challenge for the novice or the unmotivated.

*Wait, are all these images really memories? Really? This is what your cities look like from the ground?*

There was a trill of horror in her voice, the awful laughter stopping dead.

Yes? Well, the slums, anyway. Other parts of Harban don’t look that bad, and Xandre was a lot nicer. More colorful, anyway. So about this whole “The System Astrologica is actually Starbrite’s Soul” thing-

The giggling came back. *I wondered about this. You really have no idea how cultivation works, do you?*

I thought I did? Up to Level Nine anyway.

*Nnnnoooope. Looks like you are starting to figure some of it out, but you really don’t get how any of this works. After the Initiate realm, you become a real mage. Which means you give birth to your Nascent Soul- the awakened soul within you, made up of all the magic you learned as an initiate. All those spells that define you. Starbrite just learned some management spells, basic business management stuff. I don’t know how he made it all so… big. But he did. And he is pretty obviously doing it by harvesting the local yokels here.*

Truth just nodded numbly. There were business management spells. Spells specifically intended to track personnel, invoicing, inventory and property management, all that sort of thing. Probably the second most common category of spells learned after the Jeon Universal Spell, actually. If you worked in business, what could be more practical than that? Assuming you made it to Level Two, of course. Which most didn’t.

Because most people on this planet weren’t really mages, apparently.

Awakened Soul?

*Yes. I don’t really know how it works, but apparently, a bit of everyone’s soul has its own consciousness, grown out of your own life experiences, the magic you use, how you approach problems, all that. There is usually a big ritual, at least for the Shattervoid. Everyone gets together, there is a lot of singing, everyone is happy. You want the soul to wake up in the best possible way, so you have the best, brightest soul.*

*I… don’t think my soul will be very bright.*

Her voice trailed off again. Truth knew exactly how she felt.

<>

Yup. She’s saying.

*Who was that!?*

Oh… just a bit of my awakened soul. If you were wondering how Starbrite does what he does. Speaking of, you say you don’t think he can move around very easily?

*No, hang on, that’s not right. That’s not a nascent soul, you can’t have a nascent soul. I would be able to see if you did, and you don’t.*

Didn’t say I did. I just said “awakened.” I have this image of a premature baby forced into the world and set to work for Starbrite. That, apparently, grows into Starbrite. Brainwashed into becoming Starbrite. There’s a horrible image for you. We are all baby factories, giving birth to Starbrite, endlessly. So… my former employer can’t move around easily?

*It’s… bits and pieces of his soul and personality, not the whole thing. That’s. Horrible. I’m so sorry.*

Oh, I’m used to horrible. I won’t call it my happy place, but at least it’s familiar. So. ABOUT STARBRITE BEING IMMOBILE-

*Oh, well, this is incredibly weird and unnatural. I never heard a song about anything like this, at all. This isn’t something anyone does, really. For hopefully obvious reasons.*

They aren’t obvious.

There was a sense of a three story tall girl blinking in surprise. *He’s ripping off bits of people’s souls and stitching them onto his. That’s… not generally how souls work, I think. Also, however enlightened he is, keeping track of the millions of moving parts of his business all through his soul is crazy.*

No it isn’t. He’s got all those harvested bits of intelligent soul he is working with. He farms out jobs to all the bits. And speaking from experience, the main system does not interact with the… components… as much as you might think it does.

*Right. God’s mercy on you and this world. God’s mercy on you. He would be immobile because he must be at the center of some enormous ritual, keeping all this moving. The focus of some enormous magical machine. And if he was healthy and able to move, he wouldn’t want my body. If he wanted to get off world, the ticket price would be pocket change for him. Heck, we might only charge him for his meals and comp the room.*

Really?

*Yeah, lower the level, harder to shift. Higher the level, the easier to shift. At a certain level of enlightenment, one passenger can effectively balance out thousands of others. Really high level passengers can even speed up the trips a lot. Shorten the distance on this side of the cloth by a long way. One of my uncles did the Kessel run in twelve parsecs with an Ascended Master aboard, if you can believe that.*

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Truth nodded. He could believe that easily. On account of not knowing what any of those things were.

What’s a parsec?

*A unit of measurement in the void. It’s equal to Three point zero eight six times ten to the thirteenth kilometers.*

Three point zero eight six times ten to the thirteenth…. Kind of an arbitrary number. Why is that?

*I dunno. Tradition? We have a lot of traditions.* He could hear her shrug. Truth nodded. He had… so many questions. So many, many questions. But really, they were not relevant at the moment. Oh wait, there were two he should ask.

Any top secret Shattervoid Clan spells that would help me get you out?

*Probably.*

Truth sighed. Yes, that made sense. She was six when she was snatched after all.

How resistant are you to damage?

*When I’m not being pressed down by these curses and the binding tattooed on me? Extremely. Well, extremely compared to you landgrubs. Not, you know, compared to other things that live in the void.*

Truth firmly decided he wasn’t going to ask about what else lived up there. Time to leave and keep exploring. Figuring out how he was going to break her out. Figuring out… a lot of things, actually. Oh, one other question.

How did Starbrite manage to kidnap you anyhow?

*I was very small at the time, about the size of your arm. There was a shuttle parked in orbit. I remember it was painted white, a bit dirty. The void is dustier than you would think, especially near planets. There was the most amazing resonance coming from it. I could practically taste the-* There was a thought/sound/sensation of lemonade on a hot day and the tickle of mint in your nose as your feet made the water splash and gurgle as you sat on a dock with your friends, laughing and splashing and enjoying the spray.*And of course I wanted some, so I slipped away from my Dad to go see if I could have some. And then they grabbed me. And I woke up as we made planetfall here.*

Truth shook his head. Alright, I’m going to slip away now. See what I can discover about this base, see if there is anything useful I can manage to help get you out. Worst case… I dunno, blow open the doors and try to funnel enough bodies down here that they overwhelm the Level Eights on site, but that’s not a… good plan, you know?

*Try up on the first floor. They keep their minds away from me, but they do think about it a lot. Should be something good up there.*

I’ll talk to you soon, Sally.

She giggled again. *My name’s not Sally, silly.*

I have to call you something, right? And my sister’s name is Sophia, so why not Sally? We can keep the S’s going.

*I don’t like that name.*

Then you will have to think of a better one. Sally.

*Booo! Booo!* Truth smiled at her, waved at the giant girl, and started making his way back. It would be a stressful, boring wait until someone opened the door again.

Truth made his way up to the top of the base. Trying not to think about things. It was all… a lot. Too much, maybe. Why would the power emanating the planet want to forbid knowledge of nascent souls? Even if it forbids people from reaching that level of power or enlightenment or whatever. Why did Starbrite need a new body? Why a Shattervoid body in particular? It sounded like their bodies weren’t very convenient for anything other than living in the void, and the void was THE VOID. Definitionally nothing up there.

That he knew of, anyway. Just possibly the mage from off-world knew more than he did. And just what had happened to make Starbirte start his soul-harvesting operation? If it wasn’t the way things were usually done, then it presumably wasn’t very effective, or there were a lot of drawbacks or something. Because Truth would unscrew his own head before believing powerful people wouldn’t prey on the weak whenever and wherever they could get away with it. Global curse notwithstanding.

He crept along the white semi-gloss painted corridors, with their magic windows looking out over Starbrite resorts. Keeping alert for patrolling trolls or a high level nipping to the toilets. The doors continued to be their unmarked selves, but he had gotten the hang of bypassing them now. He had even taken the opportunity to steal some office supplies to do double duty as burglary tools.

Laboratory after laboratory. Specialized spell equipment, alchemical equipment, ritual rooms, a blinding fortune in supplies and magical furniture. And not one person here is a real mage. Or maybe I’m the only fake mage, because everyone else is Starbrite.

Incisive gave him a warning before he turned an ordinary corner. He lept back, but before he could race away, he felt the warning stop. He crept back to the corner. The alarm creeped up. Must be a guard post. Trolls?

He got flat on the ground and risked a bit of reflective plastic stuck with tape on the end of a long straw. The picture was blurry and distorted, but he could make out another secured room. PMC guards and, yes, trolls. All looking bored, but nobody felt like joking around and shooting the shit, apparently.

Truth was willing to bet the trolls were mood killers. He retracted his improvised mirror. Now, what rated all that security? It wasn’t an entrance to the base, or at least he didn’t think it was. The guards were facing in, not out.

He mentally shrugged and opted for patience. Sooner or later, there would be someone coming through, and he could learn something. He settled in to wait.

It took forty minutes, but there was a shift change. Mages came trooping in, covered in bulky, shiny clothes. The clothes glowed with enchantments. Truth recognized some of them. Air filtration. Air supply. Temperature control, over and over again. Fireproofing and heat reflection. Over and over again.

“Stand Clear! Stand Clear!”

There were three long chimes, a pause, then a fourth chime.

“Airlock reports flushed. Confirm flush.”

“Confirmed.”

“Unlock airlock.”

“Unlocking.”

“Contamination team, stand by.”

“Contamination, standing by.”

“Relief squad, stand by.”

“Relief squad standing by.”

There was a crack and a hiss. Even around the corner, Truth could feel the air suddenly get hot, smell… something. Something he had never smelled before, strange and acrid. Like rotten eggs in a furnace.

“Mine Equipment Maintenance Squad Seven, reporting all safe, all conditions green.”

“Good Job, Squad Seven. Squad Three, deploy!”

Truth had a sudden, terrible idea. It was the Medici way- make your problem EVERYONE’s problem. Led melted at relatively low temperatures, didn’t it?